


The road to friendship is paved with.... skin? I think?

by pikachuch1mchar



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And me who loves to write horror went 'yes please', But I'm still new to horror so any advice or criticism you could give would be great!!, Horror Elements, Phantom Nuisance AU, Rated teen because idk if I used a curse or not, Scout again thank you I love this au, Scout was like 'uh yeah for them exploring mementos is like survival horror'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-28 16:32:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15053324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pikachuch1mchar/pseuds/pikachuch1mchar
Summary: An apology- which was already going absolutely haywire- somehow went even worse than anticipated. How this happened, neither of us know. But... we're here now. And I don't know if we'll get back.





	The road to friendship is paved with.... skin? I think?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stonefreed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stonefreed/gifts).
  * Inspired by [mementos is the school of hard knocks](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15048341) by [stonefreed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stonefreed/pseuds/stonefreed). 



Mishima wasn’t what he’d consider ‘brave’. He was getting better, sure, but he wasn’t sure he was ready for this step. He was standing in one of Tokyo’s many crowded subway stations. Too afraid to ask Anne where he might find Shiho was a creepy question, so he decided to instead look at photos on her social media to figure out where she usually went! Wait… wait that was even creepier! Crap… maybe he should just go back and just apologize to her on social media. He started to walk back towards the entrance. But then again, a lot of people thought that the Internet made things less meaningful… he absolutely could not have her thinking he didn't mean it. He paced back to the wall he had been leaning on. But he could always just leave and see if he could work up the courage to ask Anne tomorrow… yeah. Now that he knew the creepier option, asking Anne felt more reasonable. He turned on his toes and started to work through the crowd.

“Mishima?” Someone called through the massive swarm. He looked up for a moment before realizing that no one would call for him, it was probably for another Mishima. He fiddled with his phone in embarrassment. But then it happened again.

“Mishima! It's you!” It was close now, almost startling him. He looked up to see the smiling, friendly, and thank _god_ unmarred face of

“Suzui?” 

Shiho’s smile grew wider, and Mishima found himself smiling back.

“Yeah! Glad you could tell, I mean, I barely recognized _you_ with out all,” she paused to wave at his general being, “that. You look like a new person!”

“I'd say the same to you, you look a lot less,” Dead? Fish-eyed? Hopeless? “Empty.”

The weight of what he came to apologize for came back full force. He started blindly fiddling with his phone again.

“Yeah, looks like we’ve both gotten some better days to come to us!” Shiho said.

“Yeah, looks like it.” He awkwardly agreed. “Uh, hey, speaking of the pa-” he shut his mouth quickly and tightly.

A horrible sensation came over him. It felt like every atom in his body was being torn apart and smashed back together, yet at the same time he was overcome by a violent wave of nausea. But in only a couple seconds, the feeling stopped. It was then he noticed three things: One, he had been brought to his knees. Two, the space he was in was a lot less crowded than the station he was just in. Three, Shiho was there too, in a similar state.

“S-Suzui, you felt that too?” Mishima had to strain to get the words out of his mouth. Shiho nodded, opting to stay doubled over at the moment. 

Looking around, the scene was grotesque at best. The walls looked like they were made of organ tissue, shiny, red, and _breathing_. There were stone support structures, almost protruding, but simultaneously swallowed by the organic material, like it had been accepted into the… being. The floor was made of something similar, but under the layer of sheen it was more lumpy, more… _mealy_. He took a step, but the floor seemed to cling to his shoes, wanting to pull him back. 

“Gross,” Suzui finally spoke, though her voice was hoarse. Mishima looked to see her squatting next to a footprint that had he had made. The thing was already regenerating itself, but there was a puddle of a deep, red liquid, and Shiho had it on her fingers. “It's blood. And it's clotting.”

Mishima responded with a sound of gagging disgust. This was hellish.

“H-how did we g-get here?” He asked in vain. It was too instantaneous. They were conscious the whole time. Did the world's greatest kidnapper take them and put them in this? Was the skin from past victims, being kept alive by some sick program? Oh god. Mishima’s hands wandered to his hair and started to pull with no conscious action on his part. Shiho was starting to show signs of fear too; eyes darting around the room and landing on a cavernous tunnel.

“Come on, let's find a way out.” She said, rising and trying to collect herself. She took only a few paces towards the tunnel before Mishima objected.

“Wait. I- Th-there's something bad that way. I can… I-I don't know, I can feel it,” anxiety crawled and wrapped around his voice, strangling the words that came through. Shiho was scared too. Terrified, in fact, but it was the only choice.

“There isn't any other way out. Things can't get too much worse anyways.” She told him. Fear shook her voice to its core too. But she had to keep composed. Be strong. 

So they journeyed across the room, footsteps making a soft squelch as they trudged across the ever-pulling room. The area around the tunnel faded into an abysmal black. It was an unknown void, yet they crept ever closer. 

And then, it was upon them. It was strange. They could see, and they could see eachother, but whatever was ahead of them, and what was behind them, was lost in all consuming void.

Mishima paused, but Shiho beckoned him to keep going. As they went further through, the air smelled strongly of something that could only be described as death. The more they went, the more overcoming it was. Shiho even pulled the sleeve of her new school shirt over her nose to filter it. The closer they got, the more Mishima felt a horrible sense of dread in the pit of his stomach. His legs felt like they would turn to jelly, and his absolute panic was starting to seep into Shiho too.

A faint chorus of moans started to accompany their slow journey through the tunnel, some voices in anguish, pain. Some of them were screaming.

The tunnel seemed painfully long, but the end came eventually, and the dark shed itself into a new room. It was split like a four way intersection, and at the end there was a… _thing_.

It was shambling away, limbs protruding and being absorbed back into it as it moved. It's body was black and it shifted with the viscosity of sludge being boiled in slow motion. It was adorned with white parodies of human faces, their features contorting as they surfaced and were pulled back into the beast, moaning all the way. Neither Shiho nor Mishima could comprehend this thing, no matter how much they stared at it, frozen in the middle of the entrance. And then it turned. It had one moaning face that was bigger than the others, desperately trying to go back into the beasts form. When that face saw them, it paused.

And then it _screamed_. Loud and unlike any animal or human scream they had heard. Pounding footsteps came towards them, and two more creatures came from the sides.

They could not scream. There was no time.

Instinct took over both children as they tried to run back. The floor clung harder to their footsteps, yet they ran. Away from this thing that seemed to glide on the organic floor. 

Then Shiho fell. Her leg. It wasn't healed yet, it couldn't…! Mishima quickly went down and pulled her up. The floor seemed to whisper to him, asking him to let her be consumed by it. With strength only adrenaline could fuel, he somehow pulled her up. He dragged her along, holding her by the waist. She used her good leg to kick at the ground. Anything, _anything_ to get them away faster.

But Mishima wasn't naturally very strong. There was only so much that could be done. Eventually, he too collapsed, and the creatures were almost upon them. Time seemed to slow as they both realized; this is where they would die. In a living room, at the hands of monsters. Nobody would find them. They would go out with a whisper.

“Suzui,” Mishima said, in a whimper barely above a whisper. “Suzui I'm so sorry I couldn't- I didn't he-help you back then!” The apology he had been panicking about earlier seemed to slip out so easily with death so near.

“Me too- I- I wish I could have stood up to him! I wish I could have ended it earlier!” Shiho returned. 

The monsters were pouncing. About to smother them, crush them, absorb them, _kill them_. They had to choose last words carefully.

“I WISH I COULD PROTECT PEOPLE FROM THAT PAIN” “I WANTED TO FIGHT FOR PEOPLE GOING THROUGH WHAT I DID”

Mishima and Shiho screamed their respective phrase in unison, and just like that, the bond that had been bubbling under the surface; created by both being favorites of Kamoshida, taking the brunt of brutal that brutal narcissism, that silent understanding of suffering,

Exploded.

A whirlwind of light and ice pushed out from the two, evaporating the monsters. All was silent for only a moment, before they got up and began to run again.

The floor didn't pull at the soles of their shoes anymore, and both were filled with renewed energy to supplement the adrenaline commonly made by a brush with death.

“There isn't anything else in that room!” Mishima shouted as they ran into the tunnel.

“I sure hope not!” Shiho yelled back.

Pausing in the middle, it was as if a miracle had happened. To the left, a defunct escalator.

“Hey, Suzui, I have the feeling that going up that is going to get us out!”

“Then let's go!”

The escalator was a refreshing, non-fleshy, solid. They seemed to fly up, and dashed through the station-like floor above. And when they exited?

The world was no longer red. They were back in the station. The normal station. 

Mishima sat against the wall, exhausted now that the danger was gone. Shiho followed suit, sitting next to him. Both took a moment to watch the feet of the crowd shuffling by, and take in the sweet sound of other humans.

“That was real... right?” Mishima asked after a while.

“The fleshy hellscape full of monsters?” Shiho said.

“Yes.”

“Then yeah.”

They stared for a few seconds more, taking in that what they experienced was reality. No dream, no hallucination. Neither were sure if it was worse as a real experience or not.

Mishima finally looked around, and he noticed something.

“Suzui, are you holding something?”

Her fist was tightly balled, with something sticking out. She opened it and found in her palm, some money. They counted the bills and coins, adding it up to 3,240 yen and a strange, but useless, arcade token.

“Wow.” Mishima admired. They both stared at it for a while, until Shiho closed her fist around it once again and stood up.

“Hey, what do you say we both go get a ‘we almost died’ dinner?” She said, holding out her hand to help him up.

“That sounds _great_ ,” Mishima said, taking her hand.

This was going to be a weird life.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey!! Earlier today Scout (stonefreed) also uploaded their fic of this AU!! They made it, and honestly it makes me really happy! As I said in the tags, I'm new to horror, so if there's anything I can do to improve, I'd love that! Either way, I'm super proud of it and I hope everyone enjoys it!


End file.
